Energy Reform and Murky Interests

Claims that the recently enacted energy reform ultimately serves American political and economic interests are clearly more than the mere product of oversuspicious minds. On April 11, 2013, Carlos Pascual, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, presented a paper to Congress, outlining the plans of the U.S. Department of State for an initiative called “Connecting the Americas 2022.” The project would enable U.S. companies to generate and distribute electricity from the Mexican border to Tierra del Fuego in a hemispheric initiative representing $1.4 trillion in business. In the section referring to Mexico, the paper pointed to energy reform as one of Mexican President Peña Nieto’s priorities — although his corresponding initiative was not presented until four months later. It also suggested that, if the initiative were successful, Mexico would attract international investors to develop its hydrocarbon reserves. This would strengthen both North American energy security and Mexico’s fiscal position.

The new head of the U.S. Department of Energy took as a done deal what would subsequently become law with the passing of legal reforms that allow foreign energy companies to establish operations in Mexico, creating big-buck business opportunities for the transnationals.

Pascual’s paper indicates more than solidly that the recent legislative process and discussion has ceded to the interests and designs of Mexico’s northern neighbor. Rather than the product of a sovereign procedure within the confines of Mexican domestic policy, this makes the set of constitutional amendments to come out of the debate part of a geopolitical game, through which Washington seeks to consolidate U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.

The obvious question is whether the measures contained in the energy reform are actually intended to ensure the supply of crude oil and its derivatives to the Mexican population, reduce domestic energy costs and stimulate Mexico’s economic development — or whether, in fact, the intention is to satisfy the interests of the biggest energy consumer on the planet, the United States, whose interests are not necessarily compatible with and may even be prejudicial to those of Mexico. What is certain is that the alleged benefits for Mexico and its people are not consistent with the Mexican federal government’s projections on the economic impact of this constitutional amendment. Added to a foreseeable withdrawal of energy subsidies, which will raise rather than reduce energy costs, the passing of a reform bill in Washington’s interests is a continuation of the program that a series of federal governments, ranging from Carlos Salinas de Gortari to Enrique Peña Nieto’s, adhere to, as Sen. Manuel Bartlett cautioned on Dec. 28, 2013.

The procedure for making a constitutional amendment that is supposedly in the nation’s interests is incompatible with: the determination of lawmakers from the Institutional Revolutionary Party and National Action Party to enact energy reform behind society’s back; defects and irregularities that emerged during the parliamentary debate on this constitutional amendment; and passing of the amendment using fast-track votes in both chambers of the Mexican congress, as well as in local legislature. If true, the possibility that the procedure may have deferred to Washington’s interests is a serious enough offense to warrant being investigated and penalized.